


Hopes and Dreams

by stew (julie)



Category: The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension (1984)
Genre: First Time, M/M, My First Work in This Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1988-07-16
Updated: 1988-07-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:01:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22145305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/julie/pseuds/stew
Summary: Rawhide is always there for Buckaroo, no matter what he needs.
Relationships: Buckaroo Banzai/Rawhide
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	Hopes and Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> **Notes:** This was written after I’d seen the film, but before I read the novel. I kind of liked the idea that the most perfect man in the world (Buckaroo, naturally) had a broken marriage in his past. (Life-long marriage being a lovely ideal, seldom attained even by the best of us fallible human beans.) It was ages until I got to read the book, so the idea got stuck in my head… 
> 
> **First published:** in my zine “Samurai Errant: Cavalier Tales Quixotic and Profane” #1 on 16 July 1988

# Hopes and Dreams 

“Any antidote for these things?”  
“No, not at all.”

♦

Maybe we were all in love with him back then. What more natural state than being in love with Buckaroo Banzai? Beautiful in an exquisitely down-to-earth way. Dynamic so that anyone near was infected with his joyous energy. Brilliant in any field he turned his hand to. Warm and open like _you_ were his closest friend. Giving and generous. Intelligent, practical. Perfection, physical and cerebral. He was far more perfect than Perfect Tommy because he was just so solid. So much of all this I’ve been describing packed into one super-human guy. He was worth fifty of the Cavaliers put together. And, man, could he play a mean guitar. 

Now. I’m the kind of guy who knows my own worth. I’m one of the quickest with a gun in my hand, can figure out the odds as well as any of them. And I didn’t get my degrees for nothing, either. I belong in the Cavaliers. We’ve all got our good points, but I’m one of the best. We’re a friendly group – for most of us, we’re the only family we’ve got. I know my own worth, but I was humble in the face of the fact that I, Rawhide, was Buckaroo’s right-hand-man. 

Nothing was ever said. None of the guys ever teased or got jealous. It wasn’t like that anyway. But he always depended on me to be there beside him, and I always was. I was the one he turned to if he needed a back-up or a volunteer, a word of support or a cup of coffee. So I was the one to go to Cuba with him that time. 

“And who else?” was Reno’s first question.

“Just me and Rawhide,” Buckaroo repeated. “You know how touchy the situation is. We can’t let anyone know we’re there, at least not until it’s finished. If we took all the Cavaliers, we might be a little conspicuous.” 

“Yeah, with the bus’s new paint job and all.” 

“Yeah.” Buckaroo flashed that wolfish grin at Pinky. 

“So, when are you going?” 

“Tonight. By ten. Tommy, organize some Blue Blaze Irregulars to get us there as quietly as possible. OK, Rawhide?” 

I just nodded, and headed off to pack. Did I say maybe we were all in love with him? That’s what it seemed like to me in those days – those days were different. It was a time that had a flavour all to itself. Like, before I met Buckaroo my life tasted of cold grey loneliness, the barren loveless tenement I lived in, quietly stacking up degrees, prizes, qualifications for I knew not what. Then meeting Buckaroo was like a burst of magnesium light, and I was fitting like a waited-for jigsaw piece into the Cavaliers, looking always to Buckaroo.

Those times… He married Peggy under the pale wind-swept blue sky, and I was his best man. The Cavaliers were all there. People like the President and the Secretary of Defense were miffed at not being invited. The Cavaliers all looked on Buckaroo like they were losing him. Not that he ever let Peggy get in the way of business – their honeymoon included me, and we went to Alaska to sort out a problem with a tracking station up there. 

We came home again, and business went on as usual. Except I knew where Buckaroo’s heart was. His heart and soul wrapped up in her blond hair, her long legs, her brusque funny ways. Those times when the Cavaliers looked up to Buckaroo like he was some kind of Arthurian second coming. Looking back, we all seemed so naive and trusting and unafraid. 

Yet the only thing I can think of that’s different now is that we’re more worldly-wise. It’s not that Buckaroo’s reality has changed, or that we don’t believe as wholly as ever in him. Buckaroo has this gift, that he can convince anyone of anything. If he wants you to do something, then you find yourself doing it wholeheartedly. If he wants you to see something his way, he will tell you his truth, and you’ll believe in it. Which would be horribly dangerous with anyone else, but I’ve never known Buckaroo to be wrong. And his reality – it’s what the world _should_ be. If Buckaroo can make it be that way by simply willing it to happen, then I can’t think of a better thing to live for. I haven’t heard anyone I can take seriously arguing either. 

So, all that time ago, Buckaroo and I were in Cuba eighteen hours later. And seventy-two hours after that we were hiking down a dirt track in the jungle, mission accomplished, and Buckaroo had that miles-away look in his eyes again. His blue blue eyes, and the rough dirty khaki he wore, with his lean form tall under the eighty-pound backpack. 

Of course we weren’t all in love with him. It was me, just me. For a start, I was the only male Cavalier I knew of who was gay. (Though if Perfect Tommy is so perfect. I reckon he has to be bisexual.) But, whatever their inclinations, how anyone could resist Buckaroo’s clear-cut looks, too beautiful to be conventionally handsome, too earthy to be beautiful, I’ll never know. How could anyone resist him? How could anyone leave him? 

Peggy leaving him a few months before this trip to Cuba just proved he was human, I guess. I never found out exactly what happened, and I never asked. He had always kept her separate from the rest of us, so when Mrs Johnson ran into the bunkhouse to warn us Peggy had left, it was too much of a shock for any of us to quite believe. He walked in minutes later to a lot of dropped jaws, and never said anything to any of us. _Leave_ Buckaroo Banzai? What woman or man would consider it? When a billion people around the world would have sold their souls to be a Cavalier for a day, in his bed for a night, done anything even for a touch, a word. 

Maybe I was the only one to see the miles-away glazed stares, the only one to hear him singing that song to himself, to see him lost and hopeless under a pale blue sky. Always open to everyone, he surely wouldn’t have imposed his misery on anyone else. 

I walked a little behind him through the lush Cuban jungle, and he gazed ahead, picturing… Peggy? He had laid his soul at her feet, and she had left him. Despite knowing Buckaroo better than anyone else, I could only guess at what turmoil she had caused in him. Once, a Cavalier had turned on him, stolen research material, national secrets, and sold himself to the highest bidder. I had seen Buckaroo’s hurt then at the betrayal. I could only imagine at how he felt over Peggy. 

We hiked down that track, coming out of the low-lying clouds as we left the mountains. I was basically running on automatic, in that fine state of exhaustion where the legs move on and on, awareness slipping in and out of focus. To stop would be fatal. Only inertia kept me going, and Buckaroo had that miles-away look on his face, which meant I had to look out for both of us. 

Only I was proved wrong when there was a sudden rustling in the foliage to our right, and Buckaroo was immediately crouched behind what little cover there was, gun in hand. Somewhat slower, I stood behind him, ready to do anything to protect him. 

A young man stepped out onto the path – and stopped, as startled as we had been by him. Buckaroo caught his eye and they stared at each other, the young man wary. A long still moment passed, and Buckaroo and the young man came to a mutual understanding that it would be best to totally ignore each other. I saw Buckaroo smile his rueful smile, and the young man melted back into the jungle, not even looking at me. 

Buckaroo turned his smile on me. “Not far now, Rawhide. And a real bed tonight. Some real bourbon.” 

“Fine by me.” 

He looked at me hard for a moment, and didn’t seem to find me lacking. “Come on,” and he led the way down the trail. I wondered briefly if my body was going to obey, but then it was used to doing what Buckaroo wanted of it, and right now it had to walk. It walked. 

It wasn’t that I wasn’t fit – we all kept in good shape under pain of Buckaroo’s disapproval. It’s just that it wasn’t often, even in those days, that we were required to trek up and down mountains and through humid jungle, with little sleep and no relaxation for seventy-two hours at a time. These days our missions involve a little more physical relaxation, and a few more creature comforts. 

At dusk we circled a little town hidden away amid the wilderness, checking as far as we could just who happened to be there. It all seemed pretty harmless to me, and Buckaroo eventually led the way down the one and only street. I watched him walking, so cool and confident, so sure and safe. Pictured an anonymous gun in the shadows, bullets smacking into his arrogance. Nope – no one would do it. He walked into town like he could command anyone’s loyalty – and he could. And if that didn’t put off a potential assassin, you’d find pretty quickly that Buckaroo wasn’t as relaxed as he seemed. 

We found – wonder of wonders – a small hotel. So the town wasn’t as isolated as it seemed. We took a twin room, and Buckaroo ordered baths. In the room, I eased my pack off, lay out on a bed, boots and all. Buckaroo pottered around bare-chested, so I took the opportunity to surreptitiously eye his broad shoulders; his firmly muscled torso. 

People brought two delightfully old-fashioned hip-baths, jugs of steaming hot water, and I made a fast exit. “I’ll just keep an eye on the perimeters,” I flung back over my shoulder. It wasn’t as if it didn’t need to be done. I just got rather flustered at the thought of Buckaroo bathing in front of me. I could just picture him, naked and unashamed. Grubby and worn, lazing in the hot soapy water, emerging scrubbed and pink and clean. 

It was an effort to keep my mind on the job at hand. I circled the town again, checking for any signs of people moving in or out, of people following us down from the mountains. It all seemed quiet, and that sixth sense you develop in this line of work wasn’t telling me anything alarming. Then again, all my senses were happily floating around a certain bathtub. 

I got back to our room, and he was dressed again, thank the gods, but still hanging around, cleaning his gear. There was nothing to do but undress and slink into my bath. Not that he looked at me once. That was another thing about Buckaroo – he was never uncomfortable, never shy or unsure, never made anyone else uncomfortable if they were as honest and open as he was. Me, I had something to hide. I was damn uneasy. 

He went down to order dinner while I got dressed again in whatever hadn’t become too dirty, safe at the bottom of my pack. I met him there in the common-room-come-bar, and we hoed into plates of beans and vegetables and good chewy bread. Companionable silence as we dealt with our first hot meal in days under the interested gaze of a good half of the village. 

We sat back after a while and settled into the second priority – a bottle of bourbon. 

“Called in yet, Buckaroo?” I asked off-handedly. Of course he had – a cardinal rule, to call in after a mission; it saves a hell of a lot of worry. Anyway, he had to let someone know where to pick us up. 

“Nope,” he said easily, sipping his bourbon. 

After a moment I found my voice. “You mean there’s more to do?” 

“Nope. I don’t want to go back just yet.” 

“Ah.” I nodded wisely, wondering what on earth was going through his head. 

“If you don’t mind hanging around for a while?” 

“Of course not.” 

He shot a smile at me, settled back into the bourbon. Miles away again. 

I got up. “Think I’ll double-check the perimeters.” And I ran away into the thick dark night. 

It still all seemed clear, even to my jangling nerves. I made a point of working my way around slowly and surely. I could hear a piano in the distance, notes reaching out through the night air, a scattering of applause. Buckaroo was playing back at the bar. I could picture them all entranced by his music, his very presence. Maybe they’d never seen anyone like him. I tended to think maybe there had never been anyone like him ever before. 

I walked slowly back to the bar and I heard him sing that song in a sudden hush. 

_“I don’t have plans or schemes  
And I don’t have hopes and dreams…” _

I walked in through the golden spill of light from the open door, through the people sitting quietly, to stand behind Buckaroo. 

_“I don’t have anything  
Since I don’t have you…” _

He sat slightly bent to the keyboard, eyes far away, his rough voice drawing the beautiful notes from deep in his heart. 

_“And I don’t have fond desires  
And I don’t have happy hours…” _

I lay my hand on his shoulder, kneading lightly. I sat down beside him on the piano stool, leaving my arm around him. Stared where he was staring, miles away. 

_“And I don’t have anything  
Since I don’t have you.” _

The sweet rough voice quieted on a breath, the fine hands lay still on the piano keys. A long moment passed before I was brave enough to turn my face to him. He seemed to grow smaller as he drew his hands to lie hopeless in his lap, and he turned his face to me. “She’s gone, Rawhide. And I don’t know what to do.” 

Tears sprang to my eyes at the naked sorrow in his. Over the lump in my throat, all I found to say was, “I know, Buckaroo.” He sighed, and leaned his head against my shoulder. I tightened my hold around him. “Another drink?” I asked. 

We sat there most of the evening, finishing the bottle of bourbon. Buckaroo sat with my arm round his shoulders, as if defeated. He was hurting, and I didn’t know what to do. He didn’t talk much – he just seemed to want some peace and some company. It scared me. You just got so used to thinking of Buckaroo as self-sufficient, as invincible. Yet he turned to me for comfort. 

Eventually I helped him up to our room. He was pretty damn tipsy, chuckling to himself as he stumbled up the stairs, leaning against the wall as I got the door open. His arm flung around my shoulders, and we tottered over to his bed and I eased him down so he was half-sitting against the pillows. 

He wouldn’t let go of me, so I ended up sitting beside him, facing him, with his hands on me. Trying to avoid his gaze. 

“Don’t let me go,” he said, sounding horribly serious. 

“Ah, come on, Buckaroo,” I said, trying (not very hard) to pull away. I made the mistake of looking down at him. 

His blue blue eyes dancing with merriment as any resolve I had left melted away to nothing. “I’m sorry, Rawhide. I know I’m behaving like a child.” 

I muttered a curse under my breath as I turned to sit next to him, and he curled up against my chest, his arms round my waist. We talked, I barely remember what about. 

Trying to explain himself, he said with a humourless chuckle, “I just feel so cold and empty and alone, Rawhide.” 

“Does it matter so much that _she_ doesn’t love you? When so many people _do_?” And as I realised what I’d said, and how emphatically I’d said it, a cold hard stone settled in my stomach. I’d often figured he knew how I felt about him – he could always read me so well in other things. But that was different to actually blurting it out in front of him. I looked down at his upturned face in trepidation, but he looked concerned, full of understanding. What else did I expect? A guy like Buckaroo would never shut you out because of something like that. And on the other hand, I had never entertained the hope that he would ever be attracted to me in return. If Buckaroo was ever attracted to another guy, it would surely have to be someone with a little more beauty, a little more finesse than I had ever possessed. 

“Rawhide…” he started. 

“Oh, no,” I interrupted, pulling away to go stare sightlessly out of the window. “ _I’m_ sorry. One day I’ll learn to keep my big mouth shut.” 

“Rawhide, I never knew. And I’ve been imposing on you all evening.” 

“I wouldn’t exactly call it imposing.” 

He startled me by appearing silently to gaze out the window by my side. “I’ve been very self-indulgent.”

“You’re allowed to be occasionally.” 

He turned those blue eyes on me, and I let myself look down on him. There was nothing to hide now, so I gazed at his fine classical face, the unruly black curls falling down his forehead. 

“I haven’t even called in yet,” he said. 

“You’re allowed some time to yourself.” But I was hardly thinking about the words. I stood there looking down on him, fighting the impulse to kiss him. It was so hard not to simply topple into his arms, press my lips against his. And he was standing there like he was waiting for something. 

“Why don’t you kiss me, Rawhide?” 

I reeled away from him, stumbling, tumbling against the bed. But he had me by the shoulders, sitting me down, hanging onto me.

“I’m sorry, Rawhide. I’m being self-indulgent again.” I had my eyes tightly closed, wondering if I was going to cry. “Come on,” he said softly. “Look at me.” 

I shook my head. “You didn’t mean that. Don’t tell me you wanted me to kiss you.” 

“I did, Rawhide. I still do.” 

At that I opened my eyes. “I don’t believe you –”

He smiled a little. “You caught my imagination just then. And it’s been so nice sitting in your arms tonight.” 

His hands still on my shoulders, I sat there aching for his kiss, to hold him close again. “Buckaroo.” 

But he was shaking his head. “I’m not going to use your love just for a night’s comfort. You mean too much to me, Rawhide. I couldn’t promise you anything. I couldn’t promise to fall in love with you.” 

“It doesn’t matter.” 

He let his hands drop, and I took them in mine. “I’ve treated you very badly tonight,” he said. 

“Whenever you need anything, I’m here for you, Buckaroo. You know that.” 

“But I can’t give you what you need in return.” 

“So I’ll take what you can give.” 

“Rawhide…” 

“I know what I’m doing.” 

“I’m glad someone does.” he said drily. I had to smile at that. But then I just sat there looking at him. So all it takes, I told myself, is for you to lean forward and kiss him, and your favourite day dream comes true. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I guess in the same way that I couldn’t help thinking of Buckaroo Banzai as self-sufficient and invincible, I thought of him as inviolate. 

Maybe the only reason I could sit there holding his hands in mine was that he’d been platonically in my arms most of the evening. I stared down at his hands, willing myself to do something. Feeling utterly ridiculous. 

“Don’t be scared of me,” he said softly. “You’re the last person I thought would be scared of me.” 

“Why do you say that?” 

“People treat me like some kind of minor deity. _You_ know I’m only human.”

I shrugged, still not meeting his eyes. “It’s hard to remember sometimes. Especially when…” 

“You’re in love with me, Rawhide?” He reached a hand to run through my tangled hair. 

“I thought you knew. I never hid anything else from you.” 

“If I had known, maybe you would have caught my imagination before now.” 

“Don’t tell me that!” 

“Well, I’m yours right now, Rawhide.” 

“For tonight,” I said, as evenly as possible. 

“For tonight,” he agreed, smiling kindly, a little rueful again. 

My memories of that night are faulty, no doubt overwhelmed by the fact that Buckaroo Banzai was happily letting me make love with him. That’s what I chiefly remember – that he was happily smiling, if not actually laughing, through it all. Which was damn refreshing when so many people seem to take sex so seriously. 

He lay naked by me, moonlight silvering his sweating skin, my hands on his waist pulling him to me, smiling like I was the best thing that had ever happened to him. That, I’ll remember for the rest of my life. That, and the feel of him in my arms, against my skin, under my hands. Making love, simple, sweet and fun… and it wasn’t long before he fell asleep lying against me. Which was hardly surprising considering the exertions of the previous three days. 

Thinking this would never happen again, I struggled to stay awake, but it was hopeless. Next thing I knew we were lying in sunlight, Buckaroo still asleep beside me with an arm around my waist. I lay there, wrestling with my conscience. What I really should have done is got up straight away, got dressed and out of there to avoid the embarrassment, the apologies that had ended every other one-night-stand I’ve ever enjoyed with a friend. But I didn’t have it in me to take myself away from him, to deprive myself even of his unconscious touch. 

I lay there, looking down on his face, on our bodies close beneath the twisted sheet, trying to see it all, feel it all clear enough to last me a lifetime. Afraid to move in case he woke, because when he woke the spell would be over. 

But eventually there was a rattling in the hall outside our door, and people moving, someone shouting outside. I felt him stir beside me. I lay there gazing at the ceiling, leaving him free to leave me. 

“Rawhide,” he said, and when I looked down Buckaroo was stretching languorously beside me, eyeing me with those blue blue eyes, reaching to take me into his arms again.

“If I’m dreaming, I’ll…” 

“Oh, shut up and kiss me good morning,” he said with a amused smile. 

After a long, leisurely breakfast, he finally called in, and some Blue Blaze Irregulars arrived with a helicopter to pick us up. 

The chopper was an old army troop carrier, noisy and empty. 

After watching the mountains disappear in the mist behind us, Buckaroo eased forward to speak to the pilots for a few minutes. When he came back, he sat opposite me, across the empty space, beyond my stretched out legs. He was leaning forward, elbows on his knees, fiddling with something I couldn’t see. 

Under the churn of the chopper’s blades I gazed out the open side, with nothing to see but palest sky. Meditating, in a way, though Buckaroo had given up on all of us in disgust when he’d tried to teach us such things. Every now and then, when I took a deep breath, I could still catch his scent on me. 

When I looked around, Buckaroo was gazing at me, a slight frown, that rueful smile again, his blue eyes wide. I smiled slowly back at him, wondering what on earth he was thinking this time. 

“Rawhide,” he said, real quiet so I could barely hear him over the chopper’s racket. “I’m falling in love with you already.” 

I tried to keep a straight face. I think I did, gazing back at him blandly. Maybe my eyes couldn’t hide the sudden leap in my pulse rate. “Ah, hell, Buckaroo,” I drawled in reply, “that’s just because I’m better in bed than you’d counted on.” 

He stared back at me, trying to match my bland expression. But I saw the laugh lurking behind his eyes, and after a moment his lips curled, and he started chuckling. “Is that right?” he said. 

“Come over here, Buckaroo.” Obediently he got up and came to sit next to me. Disturbingly close. I glanced at the two pilots, but Buckaroo just grinned at me; so I put my arm around him. I think we just sat there with silly grins on our faces for the rest of the trip. 

And that was the start of the best times of my life.

♦

♦


End file.
